The following is an excerpt from Masayuki Takayama’s serial column that appears at the end of today’s issue of Weekly Shincho.
No one would dispute that one of the paramount significance and roles of an artist’s existence is to shed light on and reveal hidden and concealed truths.
It is a well-known fact that South Korea and China are the only two countries in the world that have continued Nazism in the name of anti-Japanese education, the former since the postwar period and the latter since the Tiananmen Square incident, to maintain their regimes, even to this day in the 21st century.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United Nations has left this state of affairs unchecked, which is a paradox or a world flaw.
If only the world had the same literacy and reading comprehension level as the Japanese.
And if we assume that the above two countries and their sympathetic, anti-Japanese citizens are in the minority to cover up their country’s mistakes.
Suppose the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the person who best embodies the abovementioned definition of art. 
In that case, Masayuki Takayama should be awarded the Nobel Prize next year.
This paper demonstrates this point.
After reading this paper, even readers of Masayuki Takayama’s works, including myself, exclaimed with admiration, “He is amazing!”

Behind “Painting on a Black Background”
The U.S. forces chose Saipan and Tinian as their bases for air raids on Japan and attacked Saipan first in June 1944.　
Before the Marines landed, they fired 140,000 shells at just under 10,000 tons, but the Japanese side was alive, and there was considerable resistance.　
Still, they held on for two weeks, and the island was overrun.　
One of the defenders, Terushiro Okazaki, was hit by a shell fragment and fell into a coma. When he came to, he was admitted to a U.S. military medical facility.　
Okazaki had observed the landing of the U.S. troops closely and was surprised to find that “the first landing troops were all black soldiers.
He said he saw white soldiers for the first time around the 10th day after the battle.　
Three months after Saipan fell. The U.S. Navy attacked Peleliu Island.　
On Saipan, 3,500 U.S. soldiers died. This time, they fired 70,000 tons of shells into Peleliu, an area one-tenth the size of Saipan.　
The commander, Major General Lupertas, estimated that there were only a handful of men left and said, “Suppression in four days.”　
However, the Japanese garrison of 10,000 men was strong and held off the landing force, and resistance lasted not four days but two months.　
Even after the fall of the island, 34 of them continued their guerrilla activities and returned to Japan after the war.　
Their testimonies remain.
Six waves landed on the first day alone, but they were all black soldiers.　
When in the world were black soldiers born to protect the white man?　
Their first appearance was 35 years after the emancipation of the enslaved people. 
During the Spanish-American War, when the United States cried out for the liberation of Cuba, the existence of four black soldier units, including the 24th Infantry Regiment (3,000 men), was officially revealed.　
The first battle was the Battle of San Juan Hill, which decided the liberation of Cuba, and the U.S. side won an overwhelming victory thanks to the strenuous efforts of the black troops.　
The credit, however, went to their master, Theodore Roosevelt.　
The “strong Negro troops” were soon sent on to their next mission.
The 24th Regiment was soon sent on its next mission, a hunt for the remnants of the remaining Indians, which earned them the nickname “Buffalo Soldiers” for their strength.　
After that, the 24th Regiment was sent to the Philippines.　
The U.S. wanted to use Cuba as an excuse to take the Spanish Philippines.　
The U.S. sent out caracoles to the Filipinos, saying, “We will give you independence,” and had them attack the Spanish army from behind.　
Thanks to this, when the war was won, the U.S. said, “You cannot be self-governed. Become a colony of the United States,” and entered a state of war with General Aguinaldo.　
The 24th Regiment entered Manila and served as the vanguard of the white soldiers, killing those who defied them.
Samar and Leyte islands were all killed at this time.　
This tradition was carried over into the U.S.-Japan War and the postwar Korean War.　
The same 24th Infantry Regiment was involved in the background of the Kokura Incident, recently discussed in the Asahi Shimbun’s “Sunday Thoughts” column.　
The Regiment was stationed in Gifu, but two weeks after the outbreak of the Korean War, it was ordered to be transferred to the Jono Air Base in Kokura.
From there, it was sent by ship to Pusan.　
The division that had been in the Jono base had gone to Korea ahead of the others and had been wiped out.
Everyone knew that it would be worse this time than Peleliu.　
It was the second day after the transfer.
Gion drums could be heard coming from the city.
Two hundred people were lured out of their kindling and rode into town to slurp sake, make noise, and scavenge for women.　
Seichō Matsumoto’s “Painting on a Black Background” refers to the eagle and vagina tattooed on the back of a black soldier who raped his wife in front of him.　
The ink is used to tell who the dismembered war-dead body belongs to.　
Armed deserters are committing violence.
As night falls, the MPs arrive.
They gently persuade him to return home and bring him back to the base.　
Disturbing the Japanese?　
What about it?　
They have a mission to go to the battlefield.
They will not die in a place like this, much less in a brig.　
In fact, two days after the incident, they were sent to the battlefield and were annihilated within days.　
The man whose wife was raped gets a part-time job applying death makeup to the war dead.
Then he meets that vulva tattoo again and sticks a knife into it again and again.　
The death makeup was done at the Tokorozawa base and everywhere else.
It was instead a miraculous reunion.　
The “Jim Crow laws of the battlefield,” unknown to the Japanese, are in the background.
The column is completely missing that point.

2024/6/12 in Kanazawa The Man Who Measures Clouds